The Director's First Film Once Were Warriors Showcased a Filmmaker of Guts and Flair
In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
